Youth lifestyle magazine
Spill the Ink!
Helping Armenian youth discover the big stories taking place
in a small city
in a small city
Editorial
Housing designer in the Johnathan Hay Centre that provided a "culturally specific living" for laborers and migrants from the countryside.
The Change We Need
Louis Sullivan
May 2022
What is one thing you want to feel when you get into a market? Anger and impatience are, indeed, not what one wants to experience. On a hot summer day, when you go out for a walk, you would like to see smiling faces and warm looks, but I saw dead people with serious frowns. When you get out of your house and see your neighbor at the entrance of your building, you want to give and get a big and pleasant greeting, but what I got instead was nothing. When you get your kids to school, you want the teachers to be nice and understanding, but I saw irked instructors, ready to shake my brain when I got the wrong answer.
I was born in Syria and moved to Armenia in 2006. Seeing the behavior that the local people had back then, I praise the progress we have made in terms of feeling empathy towards one another.
Living in Armenia for more than 16 years, it is now that I am feeling the cool vibe of the new generation. A vibe that radiates kindness, empathy, and even commiseration. It is, indeed, hard to make certain people laugh and show love when all they saw since the birth of their country was war and death. However, I can see my peers growing out of that sorrow and creating the country they want to live in with their offspring.
This is what most of the people 15 years ago experienced in Armenia.
My parents moved to Armenia to experience the breath and the spirit of their compatriots. However, they experienced faces full of question marks and
expressions that demanded our immediate departure.
My parents moved to Armenia to experience the breath and the spirit of their compatriots. However, they experienced faces full of question marks and
expressions that demanded our immediate departure.
This difference can be seen even in the smallest social acts. For instance, take a taxi and if the driver is an old man, then he is more prone to not greeting you once you say hello and want even say “thank you” back to you when you end the ride. However, if it is a young man or a woman, they are more likely to have a sweet conversation with you and be kinder to you throughout the whole ride.
Some people say that pain makes people insensitive, heartless and uncaring. But what happened to my generation that saw death and war? Did they break? Did they surrender? No, they are still living and that’s what we need. We need to remember our past but welcome the new change that will come through each of us for one big cause; our well-being as a nation. By that, I don’t mean anything materialistic, but what one’s inside carries. One is beautiful with their soul and the souls they transmit kindness into.
We have changed for the better as a nation and that will get us to the future
we always wished to have.
We have changed for the better as a nation and that will get us to the future
we always wished to have.
Managing editor,
Shahen Mtafian
Shahen Mtafian
